soft as silk
by ARandomFangirler
Summary: "I'm not Gu Jun-pyo," Yi-jeong says. Ga-eul knows that. "I don't believe in locking a girl up like a bird in a gilded cage."


They're at Jun-pyo and Jan-di's wedding, and Ga-eul is suffocating in the too-stuffy, too-expensive champagne gown the mother of the bride had laced her into. She doesn't remember it being this tight at the fittings, but then again, she hadn't danced for hours at the fittings, or eaten a five course meal that she'd eventually had to abandon halfway through. Jan-di must be suffering too, but she's in high spirits; Ji-hoo is whirling her around the dance floor expertly with a grace that Ga-eul is certain has to be innate, not taught. Jun-pyo is quietly sulking, Ga-eul notices as she smiles to herself, but he's doing an excellent job of keeping it under wraps, and once the song is over the blushing bride comes bounding right back to him, leaning onto Ji-hoo for balance.

"Lonely, Ga-eul- _a_?" Woo-bin asks wryly, and she jumps a little. "Relax. It's only me. Your boyfriend-" he stretches the word out teasingly, wiggling his eyebrows, "-asked me to keep an eye on you. You know. Make sure any undesirables stay far away."

He jerks his head at Ji-hoo, who is now squinting at the drinks list by the bar. Ga-eul laughs. The idea of Ji-hoo - who, for all his wannabe bad boy motorcycle aspirations, is still a nerdy violin prodigy turned doctor - being classed as an _undesirable_ is preposterous. She says, "As admirable as your intentions are, I can look after myself, thank you very much."

"Only following boss's orders," he replies, grinning crookedly. Then he cocks his head, examining her properly. "Are you quite sure you're alright? You look tired."

She is tired. She was up until three am this morning, soothing Jan-di over the phone as she stressed and paced alone in her hotel room. Then before that, she'd been planning until at least midnight, putting the final touches on everything before waking up at six am to go to work with her over-energetic kindergarteners. But this is her best friend's wedding, and she's happy for Jan-di, she really is, and so she just nods and smiles.

"You worry too much, Woo-bin _sunbae_ ," she tells him sweetly, sipping her sickening pink cocktail. Over in the corner, Yi-Jeong is still making custom pots for the wedding guests, laughing as Kang-san - who is _fifteen_ , and taller than Ga-eul now - moulds pieces of clay into obscene shapes. He catches her eye and his face visibly softens into something softer, more fond. Ga-eul turns back to Woo-bin. "Don't you have a date to be attending to?"

Woo-bin's date is tall and leggy and artificially blonde, and currently drinking martinis with a determined vengeance. He glances at her, and shakes his head. "She's boring," he complains. "Maybe I should take Yi-jeong and Jun-pyo's advice and settle down with a _nice young commoner_."

Woo-bin grins wickedly when she steps decisively hard onto his foot, allowing her stiletto heels to do the work for her. "Just a thought," he teases. "You know, since it worked out so well for them."

Did it, though? Ga-eul, amongst other things, vividly remembers Jan-di crying over Jun-pyo, over Ji-hoo, over the school she'd never even wanted to go to in the first place. She remembers Jan-di moving from apartment to apartment, her own father being fired to punish her friend, Chairwoman Kang's cruel words and even crueler cronies. All well and good for the rich kids, she thinks bitterly, but god forbid the humble commoner get in their way.

But she doesn't say that. No point hurting anyone's feelings, not at a wedding, and Ga-eul's never been the spiteful kind, anyway.

"Hm," she says instead. "I think Jan-di and I are rapidly running out of friends to set you up with. Of course, there's always Jae-kyung _unnie…_ "

Woo-bin chokes on his beer, and Ga-eul giggles. Jae-kyung is commanding some unfortunate Western boy she brought from New York with her to dance, her imperious gaze leaving him quailing - poor Woo-bin, for all his mafia training, wouldn't stand a chance against her impertinent nature. "I'll pass," he splutters, and Ga-eul smiles into her drink once more.

They're quiet for a moment, watching the dancers and the drunkards, the acquaintances and the close friends, all celebrate. Ga-eul doesn't know many of the other guests outside of the F4 and the bride and groom's immediate families, but she wasn't expecting to, anyway. Jan-di has always been the interesting one, the bright one, the one whom the most unexpected things occur to. It's forever been alien, being such a part of Jan-di's life and yet simultaneously feeling so removed from it. Ga-eul thinks she will never get used to this world, the one where a dress costs more than her father's annual salary, but it's nice to pretend sometimes. Ga-eul looks at Yi-jeong, and thinks maybe it will be more than sometimes if things continue the way they are. Not that it matters. This isn't Ga-eul's moment, not yet.

"You're sad," Woo-bin notices. There's no accusation in his voice, just truth. "Is that a commoner thing? Crying at weddings? Yi-jeong says you're a romantic, but I think you're far too sensible for that nonsense."

Ga-eul goes to tell him that she's not crying, except when she touches her cheeks they're wet. She clears her throat. "Well, you have too much faith in me," she says, and wipes her face surreptitiously with the sleeve of her silken cardigan. "Which makes a change."

Woo-bin begins to say something, but is cut off by Yi-jeong striding towards them, abandoning his potter's wheel for once.

"Ay, Woo-bin, I give you one job and you make the lady cry?" he shakes his head. There's some clay on his sleeve, but he doesn't seem to care. You wouldn't care, Ga-eul thinks sourly, if you could buy ten more of the same. Yi-jeong puts an arm around her, and Ga-eul leans against him unconsciously. She hopes she's stopped crying, at least. "Bad form. No wonder your date ditched you."

"I ditched _her_ ," Woo-bin protests, sounding wounded. "You know, so I could look after the date _you_ ditched."

"But I'm back now," Yi-jeong says smugly. "So how about you go entertain your date again?"

Woo-bin huffs off to his long, blonde _thing,_ and Yi-jeong spins Ga-eul around until she's facing him, her forehead level with his shoulder. She hopes the clay on his sleeve hasn't rubbed off onto her dress. "Let's dance," he instructs, and leads her to the dance floor, where several loved-up couples are doing the waltz. Ga-eul supposes she's technically part of a loved up couple, now. Thankfully, she remembers how to waltz, and they twirl around the room, his hands steady on her waist.

"You're better than I thought you'd be," he hums, as she sways from side to side. She refuses to look at his face, so settles for his feet instead. Mostly because she doesn't know what she might do if she looks at his face and catches him looking back down at her. "Should I be jealous?"

"Only of Jan-di," Ga-eul shrugs, taking a step backwards. "She taught me how."

What she doesn't tell him is that, when her and Jan-di were seven, they'd both had an obsession with the male star of some drama they'd caught Ga-eul's older sister watching. They'd stayed up late binge watching episode after episode and had practiced dancing for what seemed like forever after watching the two main characters waltz at a ball. Jan-di, ever the leader, had taken the man's role - hence her lack of skill at dancing the woman's part. But Ga-eul remembers these steps, so simple they could lull her to sleep, and so she dances and pretends everything is simple, like it used to be.

"I'm not Gu Jun-pyo," Yi-jeong says. Ga-eul knows that. "I don't believe in locking a girl up like a bird in a gilded cage."

"Some girls like that," Ga-eul says back. Side-step, back-step, front-step and _turn._

"The girl _I_ like doesn't," he replies cheekily. "Or am I mistaken, Ga-eul?"

She purses her lips, and he laughs at her.

Ga-eul believes in happy endings. That doesn't mean she can necessarily tell when they're happening, though.

The song ends.

"Would you ever want this?" Yi-jeong asks her, gesturing to the silver cutlery, the glittering finery, the ornate decorations. Ga-eul's feet are aching. "You know. A white wedding."

She used to want this, a long time ago. Her and Jan-di would pore over wedding catalogues, oohing and aahing at the pretty Western brides and their handsome husbands. Yet now - she's not sure. Now she can actually imagine the face of her husband, or at least who she hopes he will be, and she doesn't really see him in the kind of wedding she'd once envisioned.

"It depends on the groom," Ga-eul neatly sidesteps the question. She's a teacher - she's used to it. "I mean, it'd be his wedding too."

"That's a model answer," Yi-jeong wrinkles his nose. "If I wanted that, I'd ask someone else. But I want your answer, not a fake plastic one."

Ga-eul just shrugs. "I don't know," she confesses. "I try not to think about those things. You've always made it clear that you're not one to settle down."

"What if," Yi-jeong breathes into her ear, "I changed my mind?"

"You'd have to tell me," she says stubbornly. "And I'd expect it to be in _private,_ not at our best friends' wedding."

Yi-jeong cackles. "Chu Ga-eul, why do you have to be so sensible?" he implores.

"One of us has to be," she says primly, and he elbows her gently.

"You're so mean, Ga-eul _yang_ ," he says. "Aren't you supposed to be the romantic? The idealistic one?"

It has been a year and a half since he came back from Sweden, and nearly six years since he left for Sweden in the first place, and she loves him, and she hates him, and she loves him still. And Ga-eul would be lying if she said she hadn't half-expected him not to come back to her at all, if she said she'd always had faith that he wouldn't leave her for someone prettier, for someone richer, for someone who wasn't her. So maybe he's the real romantic of the two of them. It's been nearly six years, nearly six years since his first love left him for his brother and nearly six years since Yi-jeong finally, _finally_ loved her back, and Ga-eul still hasn't planned for anything more than this, anything more than kissing him under foggy winter skies and daring him to eat intestines in cheap musty bars and...and…-

She supposes that maybe she should start planning after all. It's just never occurred to her that maybe Yi-jeong finally wants some permanence, too.

"Aren't you the rich one?" she fires back. She squeezes his hand. "You go plan things with your unlimited budget, and I'll go back and make sure you haven't accidentally spent the GDP of a minor foreign country."

"A very easy mistake to make," he agrees. "So kind of you to agree to rectify it."

"Yah, Ga-eul!" Jan-di calls, stomping up to them. Ga-eul has no idea how she's stomping in such expensive heels, but she's proud of her determination nevertheless. "You've left me alone with this idiot all night."

Jun-pyo splutters in astonishment, which is the only real indication of his presence at all since he blends in so ridiculously well with the all-white decorations. "This idiot is your husband!"

"Oh, good," Jan-di says. "For a moment there, I thought I'd married the wrong person. Ga-eul, let's go touch up our makeup."

"I'm talking to her-" Yi-jeong begins to protest, and Jan-di - rather uncharacteristically - bats her eyelashes at him.

"But it's _my_ wedding," she drawls, sweet as honey, and Yi-jeong just stares at the two of them as she drags Ga-eul away, surprisingly strong despite her tiny stature.

The bathroom is plush. Possibly bigger than Ga-eul's bedroom, and definitely bigger than any other bathroom she's been into, bar Yi-jeong's. There's a large purple ottoman positioned by the door and the pair of them collapse onto it, scrabbling to pull their shoes off and massage their bruised and battered feet. Neither of them bother reaching for the lipsticks stashed in their matching white handbags. Of course, neither of them really thought they'd be applying any makeup, anyway.

"He wants to marry me," Ga-eul finally says, the words feeling slippery and metallic. "Yi-jeong, I mean. At least I think that's what he was trying to say."

"I know," Jan-di says back. "He told me. Or asked me, depending on how you look at it. I'm still mad that you fell for his wicked charms, you know. They called him Casanova for good reason."

Ga-eul laughs. It feels slightly hollow. Everyone had warned her, and she hadn't listened. Just like Jan-di, she can be pigheaded when she wants to be. And he'd come back, hadn't he? That was what mattered. But still, she feels robbed of those four years, those four years of muffled phone calls and secret rendezvous. It doesn't feel like five and a half years, nearly six. Time has flown, and now Ga-eul is twenty four, and she doesn't know where it has gone but she wants it back.

"I'm not an old lady like you," she yawns. "If he proposes to me, I'll say yes, but I'm going to make him wait for it."

"How noble," Jan-di says. "Is that so you can put off having kids? I guess dealing with all those six year olds kind of ruins the allure of it. Also, I'm only twenty five, so shut up."

"I just…" she trails off. "I don't owe him anything. He chose to run off to Sweden. So I'm going to choose to make him wait. These rich kids need to learn that their actions have consequences in life."

Jan-di snorts. "I wouldn't hold your breath, Ga-eul- _a_ ," she says. "Even Ji-hoo is yet to learn, and he's the most grounded out of the four of them."

Ga-eul, a teacher, a romantic, a believer, sometimes thinks that the F4 are beyond learning anything at this point. Today, she doesn't. Today, she sits in the bathroom and leans on her best friend's shoulder and tries to imagine a heavy diamond ring on her own left hand, tries to imagine a drunken speech about her husband.

Ga-eul is still suffocating in her dress.

Some things, she thinks, don't matter.


End file.
